It took around seven hours to travel from my small town to one of the Seven Wonders of the World. We were all packed up and had left my oddly quiet town at approximately 6:35 am. There had been no cars on the road, and if there had been, they were off to work bright and early. We had the car piled high with our bags since this was going to be a fairly long trip. We had bags filled with fun activities to keep us entertained, though we never actually used any of the activities brought since we had our phones. We had a designated bag for food, clothes, and sleep attire. This trip was a surprise trip for my Dad’s birthday, but everyone benefited from it and experienced the most that the world could offer.
As the hours dragged on, I realized we were minutes away. We had finally entered Buffalo, NY, where every corner had a Buffalo Bills logo or item. After around 25 minutes, the signs had started to pop up pointing to “Niagara Falls.” There were pictures of the waterfalls on posters and billboards advertising the world’s largest waterfalls. Looking at these billboards passing by the back window of the car had led to the anticipation almost coming to an end. We stopped to get gas, and everywhere you looked, there was merchandise like shot glasses, coffee mugs, t-shirts, and hoodies that had “Niagara Falls, NY” on them with background images of the falls. When it finally came for us to go see the falls, we parked on a slightly busy street where there were more shops to buy merchandise at and plenty of places to get food if you were hungry. As I got out of the car, the first thing I saw was the CN Tower, which is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The first thing I did was proceed to play “CN Tower” by Drake. As we walked up the street, we had to look for our tour guide, who had been looking for us and was waiting for us to join the rest of the tour group. Our guide had explained the history of the falls and how it’s on the Canadian border.
She went on to explain how we would be given blue ponchos so that we wouldn’t get soaked from all the mist, and that we have the blue ponchos because we’re on the American side, and on the Canadian side, they were given red ponchos. While we were walking around the area, we could see some of the falls from far away, but as we got closer, they were larger and more beautiful than we had expected. We had walked over to the first falls, which had been the “American Falls,” which had been split by the island called “Goat Island,” which separates the other two falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and then Horseshoe Falls. Our tour guide had told us the history of Goat Island, such as how it had originally been titled the “Iris Island” due to how popular the flower, Iris, was blooming all over the island. Though in the 1770’s pioneer John Stedman had brought over his 100 goats to protect them from wolves, but then every one of them, except for one, had died in the freezing winter of 1780. To access this island, you have to cross over two bridges that are above the American Falls.
As we continued, we had been directed towards the “Maid of the Mist,” which was the popular cruise ship that takes you up close to all three of the falls (hence the red and blue ponchos so you don’t get soaked)(you get extremely wet anyway). In order to get down towards the water and the ship, we had to take an elevator, which was very terrifying. As we got down, we had spotted our boat, which had a bunch of blue ponchoed people, but from across, there were mini red ponchos on a boat far, far on the other side. The boat had taken us close to the Bridal Veil Falls, but also directly in the middle of the Horseshoe Falls. Horseshoe Falls is the most commonly known of the three falls due to its distinctive horseshoe shape. At this point, my family as well as I had been completely drenched in the Niagara Falls water. As we were on the boat, I had noticed the CN Tower more clearly and closely now that it wasn’t so far away from where we had parked. I had been obsessed with the entire trip, mainly for the Niagara Falls, obviously, but also to see the CN Tower due to being oddly fascinated with it for the majority of the trip.
After we had taken the Maid of the Mist, we had met back up with our tour guide, where we had now begun the walking trail part of the tour. Our guide proceeded to tell us more facts about the falls as we experienced more of their beauty. As we walked around, she showed us around the American Falls first and explained how, during 1969, the falls had been drained and were completely dry for 6 months, so that geologists and engineers were able to study and research the falls and its rocky foundation. Then we had gone over and crossed the two bridges to get to Goat Island, where she had also told us that John Stedman, who had the goats, had lost his possession of the island in 1801 to the State of New York. There had been a statue of Nikola Tesla who had been a famous electrician who had come up with alternating current, using the Niagara Falls waters, where he created the first hydroelectric power plant within the Niagara Falls.
In my personal opinion, viewing these falls so up close and hearing about them for as long as I can remember is a life-changing experience and feels like a refresh on life, though, as a person who personally despises the state of New York, this was an odd trip, but I enjoyed every second.
